“It’s highly likely, just short of a foregone conclusion,” McKenzie said on TSN’s Insider Trading, “that the National Hockey League will be shutting down for 16 days in the middle of next season to allow its players to participate in the Olympics.”

Why “just short of” a foregone conclusion?

According to McKenzie, the NHL and NHLPA want a better deal from the International Ice Hockey Federation and International Olympic Committee.

“A better deal doesn’t mean a better monetary deal,” he explained. “It means better access to the players. The use of images, the use of video, things like that — as well as accommodations, tickets and the NHL and NHLPA basically being treated as if it was a major sponsor of the Olympics.”

McKenzie also noted a meeting will occur in mid-February between the four key parties — the NHL, NHLPA, IIHF and IOC.

Speaking of the IIHF, president Rene Fasel recently spoke with Olympics website Around the Rings and had this to say:

I’m really confident that the NHL players will be in Sochi. We know the players want to be there. Many others, not just [top Russian and confirmed torchbearer] Alex Ovechkin, have expressed their determination to go to Sochi.

We know that all the four Olympics, we had the NHL players, and they have produced wonderful tournaments. We really know that the Olympic tournaments are good for our sport, in general for sport, and also for ice hockey.

We are really confident that the Olympic spirit will prevail and that the best players will be in Sochi.

“We have the Olympics in Sochi next year. It’s the main event,” Kamensky told Sportbox.ru “We all must prepare for it. Everything must be done for our national team to succeed there and take gold medals.”

“By the way, it’s very good that there’s already an agreement that the NHL players will take part in the Olympics. It’s 100 per cent certain decision. Hockey in Sochi will be very interesting.”

According to Jason Kay, Editor-in-Chief of The Hockey News, May has been pegged as a “reasonable target date” for a decision to be made.